COMPANIES on a Coventry business park are complaining that a relief road needed for emergencies has been cut from the plans to update the Toll Bar End roundabout.

Representatives from Middlemarch Business Park in Siskin Drive first met the Highways Agency last September to discuss initial details of the £77 million development.

The Coventry Telegraph revealed last week that the huge revamp of Toll Bar island includes an underpass to link the A46 Coventry eastern bypass with the A45 Stonebridge Highway.

But the companies insist they need a relief road running from the A45 London Road to Siskin Drive to ease traffic and to provide emergency access - something they say is crucial with having Coventry Airport and Coventry Chemicals on the road.

Currently Siskin Drive is the only way to get in and out of the site.

But between that meeting in September and the public exhibition at the start of this month - which they say they were not told about - the relief road they discussed has disappeared from the plans.

Members from the airport, LRQA, Gefco, Brindley Twist Tafft and James solicitors, Christian Salvesen and Coventry Chemicals say they are angry they have been left out of discussions.

Samantha Wright, from Brindley Twist Tafft and James, said: "It was by chance we found out the public exhibition was taking place.

"The reason given for not having the relief road was that there wasn't significant volume of traffic, it was going to cost £1 million and its proximity to the mini-roundabout meant they couldn't do it without impacting on the flow of the A45 in one direction.

"The projections they are using for Coventry Airport is traffic of two million passengers but the airport's own projections for the coming years is 4.6 million passengers.

"There are health and safety issues which is why we need the relief road - God forbid there's a problem when there's only one access."

Angela Payne, from LRQA, added: "It seems the decision has been made without us.

"There's supposed to be a public consultation about it in the spring but it seems a waste of money to have one with only one option."

Richard Parker, regional manager at Gefco, said: "We didn't get leaflets about it, for which they did apologise, but we're not even shown on the map."

A meeting with a representative from the Highways Agency is to take place by the end of this month, with the Middlemarch businesses meeting again in May.

Work on the junction is scheduled to start in 2009 and be finished by 2011.